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Sunday, September 3, 2017

Review: Vallenfyre - Fear Those Who Fear Him

UK metallers Vallenfyre have initially developed as an outlet to actively deal with the death of lead singer Greg Mackintosh’s father, but with the great success of the two previous longplayers, “A Fragile King” and “Splinters”, established themselves in the community. On the 2nd of June this year, they released their 3rd album, “Fear Those Who Fear Him” – let’s give it a spin!

“Born To Decay” is a mainly instrumental intro, where only in the beginning we hear “fear those who fear him” a couple of times. “Messiah” kicks off with some brutal death metal drumming, then takes it back a notch only to release its full brutality again when Greg starts to sing. With just 2 minutes of playtime, this track is super intense and an awesome starter. “Degeneration” is less brutal, but still a great track, before we then enter the doom metal field with “An Apathetic Grave”. Very nicely done, as it generates a chilling atmosphere and evokes pictures of death and decay within the listener. After “Nihilist”, being a death metal track again, the sixth track of “Fear Those Who Fear Him”, “Amongst The Filth”, holds a surprise in the beginning in form of more rock and heavy metal tunes, that sometimes remind of Motörhead. About midway through the song this is abandoned though in favor of a more brutal sound. “Kill All Your Masters” is again an in-your-face track, before we can breathe through once again with “The Merciless Tide”, where you can almost feel the water rise due to the bleak, almost depressed atmosphere conveyed by the guys. After this, it’s two more death and one more doom tracks before we end with “Temple Of Rats”. This song combines all the strong points of Vallenfyre and is therefore an epic end to a great album.

In conclusion: as just said, “Fear Those Who Fear Him” is a great album, due to its diversity, the awesome and from time to time bone-chilling atmosphere it creates and the very good production. Fans of death or doom (or both) will love this one! 9.5/10.